A Series of Short Horror Stories

Gaze

     I don't remember when it became my reality, I don't remember when looking up at the sky didn't give me chills, or when the sun didn't stare down at me from above. Ever since my memory begins, it has been the fact that whenever I look up, no matter what up is or what direction it is in, no matter the situation, I have seen these bright, sickly looking eyes.

     These eyes are barely noticeable when I tilt my head up quickly, which has led me to believe at a few times that they aren't there at all, but then I fall back onto my bed and look at my ceiling and there they are. Unblinking, staring, a stark contrast to whatever they are in front of no matter what. They are always above me, directly over my head, piercing through my eyelids even if I close my eyes, if I so much as turn my head upwards they are always there. They have a kind of milky yellow to the sclera, and the irises have a sickish green colour to them, and they almost seem to glow under any lighting, making them extra impossible to ignore if you look at them head on. I can't ever escape their gaze, even when I'm not looking at them, I can feel them staring.

     I don't know if anyone else has these eyes, I know no one speaks about it, so neither do I. Perhaps they do have eyes that are always there and they just don't talk about it in public, but discuss it behind closed doors. I wonder if perhaps everyone else has eyes that appear behind them, or under them, and I was simply unlucky enough to have eyes constantly looking down from above on me, but thinking about that too much just makes me feel sad for myself. No matter though, it doesn't matter much to me anymore.

     At multiple times in my life I've tried to come to peace with these eyes, maybe they're the eyes of an angel watching over me, or maybe a benevolent god, but no matter how much I kid myself, it never feels like a benevolent gaze. I once tried to study their existence, how they're always somewhere above my head even when I'm not looking, how when I close my eyes and fall back onto the bed, I see them in front of my eyelids, but I grew so unnerved by their perpetual gaze that I ended the experiment rather quickly. I have learned to sleep on my stomach, never look at the clouds in the sky, and most of all, skip out on stargazing, as the vastness of space does not help with their gaze. I used to say the vastness of the stars combined with the ever present watch was worse than complete darkness and the watching, but now I'm not so sure.

     The adjustments to my lifestyle, to avoid seeing the eyes may sound small at first, but it all adds up really. At some point I had kids, and when my daughter asked me to lay down with her and read her a story, I had to shake my head no and sit upright. When I was first getting together with my husband, and he told me my face was more beautiful than the moon or all the stars in the sky, I forced myself to smile, as to him that was probably a lovely compliment. When my little sister dragged me on a roller coaster for her first birthday where she was allowed to have friends over, I had to leave early because I felt horribly sick; I guess, in a way, the loop de loops did upset my stomach. And when I wrote my will, around when I was forty, I requested that for the funeral, I be buried face down in the dirt, and placed face down in the coffin. At one point I tried to end it, but when I faced the bridge and began to fall back, my head angled upwards and I figured the world was far too cruel to let me fall on my stomach so I wouldn't face the sky, and the end wasn't worth the possibility of that forever gaze.

     When I grew sick, later in life, the hospital, the surgery, and the bed were the worst parts.

     IVs criss crossed and tangled around my arm, so I was unable to even lay on my side, forced to face those eyes even when I closed my own.

     I was far too sick to say much of anything, and I think I was a tad hysterical by the end of the surgery, so the nurses assumed my cries of frustration were from me being unable to fold the bed further back, and I was unable to correct them. I say it with complete sincerity when I say, that if I had had the strength, I would have wrung the life out of those nurses, though they couldn't have known the extra damage they were doing to my psyche.

     The surgery however, the surgery was the worst part by far.

     The surgery was when I learned that the eyes don't go away, even when under something as strong as anesthetics.

     I didn't feel a thing from the prodding of the scalpel, or if I did it paled in comparison to the feeling of those beady eyes, staring at me through my closed eyelids as I screamed without making a sound.

     After that long long hospital visit, I made another adjustment to my lifestyle, which involved never, ever, going back to the hospital again.

     In retrospect, I would have gone to the hospital one billion times, under those exact conditions, if it meant avoiding what would come to pass.

     Without the visits to the hospital, I grew ill, and far frailer than I had been before. My daughter watched over me and told my husband that I must have suffered a psychotic break. My husband would suggest putting me in a home, but I had enough mind left to put him off that idea as soon as it left his lips. My daughter would come home every day to make sure I was keeping healthy enough to survive, and I don't think I ever was. She would continue to do so until I finally fell face forward and stopped breathing, a bliss I have not known since, as there was no threat of accidentally seeing the eyes.

     The next long while was a blissful blur, and since I'm dead, one would assume it would remain that way. The lack of eyes felt like a gift from god.

     The funeral was a closed casket, my wishes were respected, however, before the funeral, was my first sign that something would ruin this sweet bliss.

     As standard procedure for the funeral home I chose, my eyes were removed and replaced with cotton before the funeral, but during the procedure, I was flipped onto my back, and towards the sky once more. For an agonizing twenty minutes, me and the eyes were reunited in our gazes, and this did not end even after my eyes were removed. I was flipped back onto my front, and then placed in the coffin the same way.

     The funeral was uneventful though many cried, despite my handicap in life, I had made many friends. The next few days or so were the same bland story, as my artificial preservation kept my unseen face from decay, and it seemed like when I'd be put to rest, I'd finally know true peace.

     It really wasn't the grave diggers fault that when the casket dropped, it flipped over.

     I'm not a ghost, so I can't haunt, and I'm unsure if I can die a second time, but if that were a possibility I would jump at it. I would rather do anything than stay in death, constantly watched, by unblinking. Forever gazing, Cold, Cold, Eyes.